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Make.Money.Fast

You might remember it as Dave Rhodes chain letter

This spread through many posts rather than one canonical upload.

Viral classics22 of 40

1989·informative

A chain letter, signed Dave Rhodes, telling the reader to post a dollar to each of five names, add their own, and pass it on.

At a glanceThe facts

Format
Post
Made by
Signed “Dave Rhodes”, of Norfolk, Virginia. Nobody of that name has been reliably identified
Also known as
MMF, among people fighting spam
First posted
On Usenet on 13 November 1989, the earliest known posting there. The letter had circulated by post since 1986
Origin
No single original
Available
Not held by ViralWorld

What this wasThe story

A letter signed "Dave Rhodes" describes a repossessed car, an unemployment cheque that ran out, and then a cruise, a Lincoln Town Car bought for cash and a house on the Florida coast. The reader is told to post a dollar to each of five names, add their own name to the bottom, and forward the list. It is a pyramid scheme in plain text, and it moved through dial-up bulletin boards, Usenet newsgroups and email from 1989 onwards under the filename MAKE.MONEY.FAST.

The Guardian went looking for Dave Rhodes in 2003 and could not establish that he had ever existed. The letter's descendants — the Nigerian-prince advance-fee mail, the Bill Gates beta-test hoax, every "forward this to ten people" message — are the direct line from a 1935 Denver postal chain letter to the modern inbox.

Why it matteredWhat changed

By 1994 it was among the most persistent spam on bulletin boards and Usenet, and a newsgroup was named after it. No success from it has been independently verified.

TimelineIn order

  1. Made

    The earliest documented copy, a letter sent by post.1

  2. Posted

    The first known posting to Usenet, by a student called David Walton. His account is closed.1

  3. Later

    The newsgroup alt.make.money.fast is created.1

What people misrememberSet straight

Commonly remembered asDave Rhodes was a student at Columbia Union College.

ActuallyThat confuses him with David Walton, who posted the letter to Usenet. A website and a story of a prison sentence in Rhodes’s name were both fakes.1

LegacyWhat it left behind

More from hereIn this collection

Why it is here: something the internet still knows by name · it got out of its own corner of the internet fast · still being watched and quoted years later

Where it came fromWhat we know

This spread through many posts rather than one identifiable original. No copy is held here — what it was, when it spread and what people called it is what this page can tell you.

Nothing here is claimed to be the first version of this. It spread through many posts rather than from one identifiable original.

Not established. This index only names a creator where the evidence supports it.

SourcesWhat was read

  1. Wikipedia — Make Money Fast

Sources last read on . That date is about the history on this page. Whether the media still plays is checked separately and can change any day. How ViralWorld documents things

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